Even that Thanksgiving bird on your table can’t escape the fierce politics that dominate Washington.

Turkeys are entangled in some of the toughest battles of the year, from immigration reform, to the stalled farm bill to ethanol and food labeling.

And that’s on top of the many government rules and regulations the industry faces just like any other American food source. All told there are countless rules — including those dealing with animal welfare, food safety and labeling — that guide farmers, slaughterhouses, distributors and grocery stores on how to get that turkey to the Thanksgiving table.

Here are the top five areas where your Thanksgiving turkey collides with policy and politics:

Immigration reform

Poultry plants often rely on immigrant workers to meet labor shortages, so the turkey industry has been pushing theHouse to take up immigration reform.

The National Turkey Federation supported the Senate-passed comprehensive immigration reform legislation “as an important step,” but the group is also pushing the House to pass a bill that covers guest workers employed in poultry processing plants.

The kind of labor involved in poultry plants, where workers have to kill, de-feather, inspect and process turkey, along with a decline inpopulation in rural areas, where many of these plants are located, has made immigration reform crucial for the turkey industry.

The temporary work programs available for migrant workers are also largely directed at seasonal labor, which does not solve the laborshortage for processing plants that need full-time employees.

Corn stuffing

It wasn’t just oil refiners who scored a victory when the Obama administration decided to reduce the amount of ethanol that is blended into gasoline. It was also a major victory for the entire meat and livestock sector. Using corn in fuel drove up farmers’ cost of feeding their birds.

And the turkey industry will continue to push Congress for a full repeal of the mandate or “common sense reforms” because it reduces the supply of corn available for livestock feed, which increases costs for producers, Brandenberger promised.

About 42 percent of corn grown in the U.S. in 2013 went toward ethanol production while 45 percent went toward feed, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Agriculture economist Thomas Elam, president of FarmEcon, estimates that since the enactment of the ethanol mandate, feed costs for the turkey industry have increased by $1.9 billion.

He called the reduction in the standard for next year as “a solution for 2014 not for the long term.”

Farm bill fight

The entire agriculture community has been waiting for Congress to pass a new five-year farm bill, following the Sept. 30 expiration of the 2008 law, and time is running out. The four principal negotiators left D.C. last week without a deal.

Although a farm bill isn’t as crucial for the turkey industry as it is for others in the agriculture sector, Brandenberger said there are some programs the National Turkey Federation is pushing for, including one that helps producers prevent runoff.

“While we’re not directly caught up in the farm bill, there are some risk management tools that are important for our members,” Brandenberger said.

The farm bill is also crucial for commodities like corn and soy beans, which the turkey industry relies on for feed. Any changes in prices of those commodities, can make it more expensive for producers to raise turkey.

“Everything is so interconnected in agriculture,” said Keith Williams, spokesman for the National Turkey Federation.

Big Ag meets Big Pharma

Big Ag has been on the hot seat in recent years for its use of antibiotics in livestock production. The turkey industry is no different.

From Chipotle’s “Scarecrow” video to comprehensive reports on the issue by groups like the Pew Commission, the use of antibiotics in agriculture is being constantly criticized.

An online petition to keep unnecessary antibiotics out of Butterball products, the nation’s largest turkey producer, has nearly 17,000 signatures. The petition claims the company routinely uses antibiotics to maximize profit: “It’s the mostwonderful time of the year … for Butterball, the largest producer of holiday turkeys in the U.S. It’s also Butterball’s most profitable time of the year,” the petition states.

But Brandenberger, whose group represents Butterball, said the turkey industry supports the Food and Drug Administration’s guidance that recommends phasing out the widespread use of antibiotics and using the drugs only for therapeuticuses with veterinarian oversight.

“We just want to have a process in place to put this issue to rest,” he said.

Feeling good about your bird

After the negative attention the turkey industry received in 2011 during a major Salmonella-related outbreak, preserving consumer confidence in the safety of turkey products has been a priority for the industry.

The outbreak linked to Cargill’s products resulted in a recall of 36 million pounds of ground turkey — one of the largest meat recalls in U.S. history.

The Agriculture Department is preparing to expand the use of a new inspection process on both chickens and turkeys that it says will improve food safety. It’s already testing the process, which allows for less federal inspectors and greater line speeds, in five turkey plants and says it has data that show positive results.

However, a recent Government Accountability Office report found that USDA hasn’t provided enough data to back its claims, and food safety and worker safety advocates both remain concerned.

“This Thanksgiving, as we give thanks for our food and the hands that prepared it, we should remember the injured hands and bodies of poultry workers who labor at dizzying speeds without basic health and safety protections,” said Catherine Singley, senior policy analyst for economic policy at National Council of La Raza, in a recent conference call.

But Joel Brandenberger, president of the National Turkey Federation, which has spent $105,000 on lobbying the federal government so far this year, and others in the poultry industry say the numbers do not support the concerns and are confident that the new approach will yield better results.

“It’s going to be great for food safety,” said Brandenberger, who represents turkey producers and processors. “This rule is going to be based on a decade of experience. We remain optimistic that we’ll see this before the end of the year.”